


Nor Immemorial

by kalliel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s11e01 Out of the Darkness Into the Fire, Gen, The Darkness - Freeform, actual wtf, reforestation AU, wild over the top eschatological speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4961638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliel/pseuds/kalliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Purgatory is bountiful in Death’s presence.</p><p> <br/>[The Darkness didn’t seem to know who Death was; maybe we don’t either.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nor Immemorial

She’s in the trees with the rest of the reapers, spread like moss in the branches. Tessa lost the right to her old form--even here, in papery, imaginary Purgatory--when she stabbed it with Cain’s blade, so now she chooses moss. 

But when Death comes, Tessa wills herself into a bird and flutters down to meet his shoulder.

What are you doing here? she trills. You can’t kill Death.

Death lets her hop onto his finger. It’s shiny with spicy grease.

He says, You can’t kill reapers, either. At least, were I the one to write the universe, these are the rules I’d follow. But this is hardly a universe I crafted.

But you presided at its inception, Tessa insists. There’s been Death since Creation, since Chaos. Since time immemorial.

Death’s chuckle puffs up Tessa’s plume. 

Death is neither immortal, nor immemorial, he says. Merely inspired paratext.

But then, everything-- Tessa begins. _Everything,_ Tessa finishes.

I believe God once called it vandalism, Death explains simply. But no one ever suspects an old man in a fine coat. Not of that.

The Winchesters are going to find out, Tessa objects, with grudging certainty. They'll find out that you’re not who you said you were. That you know more than you’re letting on. We won’t be safe here.

And Tessa, on edge, becomes a bigger bird. Knife-feathered and long-taloned.

All around, Purgatory is shifting, becoming--growing lush and green in Death’s presence. Moss crawls from all corners and coats all the gray trees, the gray earth. It smells of loam and decomp. Purgatory is bountiful in Death’s presence.

They’ve never been terribly quick, Death points out. 

We have some time.

 


End file.
